


The Deepest Confessions are Whispered in Moonlight

by TieflingDruid



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms, Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TieflingDruid/pseuds/TieflingDruid
Summary: Small town tiefling, Zasha Bonnart, never meant to become an adventurer. In fact, She had always imagined a quiet life for herself, but fate and circumstance seemed to have other plans, when they threw her together with Torrukrim, the grumpy, dwarven soldier, Artimæus, a nervous, human scribe and Bing, a lively, gnomish musician, running from his past.This seemingly random meeting sent them all down a path of victories, loss and political intrigue, making powerful enemies along the way.





	The Deepest Confessions are Whispered in Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is the... novelisation, I guess, of a current D&D campaign. We started the campaign about four months ago now, so the first few chapters will be a lot more narration and less description, until we get closer to the current point in the campaign, where i remember more details (and have more detailed notes)
> 
> It is mostly just a pet project to get back into writing.

Zasha never meant to become an adventurer. Actually, two months in and with a spread of new, powerful allies and foes, she would still hesitate to describe herself as such.

Zasha grew up on her own. Not because she was alone or because nobody wanted her. She grew up by the light of her parents’ love, but even that could not illuminate the darkness of the townsfolk’s suspicious glares. 

Fedrim and Tana Bonnart were ordinary humans before their daughter arrived. They lived in a small village in The Silver Marches, where they owned and ran the town’s only apothecary. This often meant that in an emergency, they were the only medically trained people within reach, as the nearest doctor lived in Sundabar twenty miles away.

As it were, this would be both a blessing and a curse, when Tana gave birth to a little tiefling girl, Zasha. Being in a small town and of undeniably abyssal decent meant that the blame always fell on Zasha, when anything bad happened in the village. The Truepikes’ cow died? It must be that demon spawn next door. Glask lost his favourite goat? Demon child.

Naturally, these things were only said in whispers, when Fedrim and Tana weren’t around. No one wanted to risk angering the town apothecaries out of fear, they wouldn’t help during an emergency. 

Now, both Fedrim and Tana were good and decent people, who loved their daughter immensely and would never deny anyone medical attention, but wicked people expects wickedness from everyone, and the fear alone was enough to spare their daughter angry mobs wielding pitchforks.

But Zasha weren’t stupid. In fact, she was quite perceptive. When she was old enough to help out in her parents’ shop, even she noticed how customers would rather wait for her parents than go to her. 

Nonetheless Zasha grew up, grinning at and bearing anything they threw at her, she was taught the arts of medicine, alchemy and herbalism. She was even admitted into the Right Honourable Guild of Alchemists and Apothecaries of the Sword Coast. She grew up to become a soft young   
woman, albeit a young woman with ram horns adorning her forehead and blue waves the colour of midnight. Her eyes never developed iris nor pupil, but rather kept a solid silvery sheen, as though two tiny moons had been captured there.

But soft hearts are so easily hardened by the world, and Zasha needed an out, or she too would have been turned cold and cruel by the coldness she had met. Her parents knew this. In fact, they could already see it happen. And so, they gave her most of what little savings they had, packed her up in a warm cloak and sent her out into the world.

After leaving her village, Zasha walked along the River Rauvin, gathering whatever edible or medicinal plants, she could find, and she would stop at the villages or settlements she came across, selling her herbs and medicines, even providing medical aid to whomever might need it. In return, she got what people could spare, a few copper pieces, a hot meal or a dry stable to sleep in for the night.

That is, until she reached a vast forest, and there were no longer any settlements to be found. Zasha continued underneath the ancient canopies, losing her last sight of the moon to the silence and darkness of rustling trees as she went. She made her way between the foliage, not noticing the birds nor a curious squirrel keeping a watchful eye on her. 

She walked for days. Having long ago run out of rations, and not knowing how to hunt, she had no option but to live off berries and roots, both of which were luckily plentiful in the forest albeit not very filling. At night she climbed the trees and tied herself to sturdy branches not knowing what nocturnal predators might stalk the forest floor.

After the first tenday living in this manner, Zasha was cold, starving, sore and immensely and inevitably lost. 

The frost had started to bite at the dirt beneath her downtrodden boots, and even a heavy woollen cloak wasn’t enough to keep out the cold, soaked as it was by the downpouring rain slamming into the leaves high above her. 

Just as she was all but dragging herself along the forest floor, drenched and exhausted, she saw it. The oak tree was the biggest thing, Zasha had ever seen, short of the mountains crowning her old home. Monstrous in size and adorned by four smaller oaks, it was an impressive sight to behold. Out of the ground burst gnarled and twisted roots so vast, they created tiny caves, just big enough for a freezing tiefling to nestle into and seek shelter in.

Lying there, safe and sheltered in a canopy of dirt and wood, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

…

Zasha woke up, by no small amount of grace from the gods, to the feeling of something nibbling at her fingertips. Whether it was something, that thought she was already dead, or something that wanted her attention, she couldn’t know for sure. Not until she hesitantly and with some difficulty pried open her eyes to reveal that a squirrel had now moved on to tugging eagerly at her shirt sleeve. 

Noticing her stirring, the squirrel darted away, and Zasha absolutely expected never to see it again, and so was surprised when it returned not two minutes later with a single berry, which it deposited in front of her. It then proceeded, not to run away, but rather to stare at her. Sitting on its hind legs, its tiny eyes darting from her to the berry and back again.

Finally gathering its meaning, Zasha reached out for the berry, gingerly, so as to not scare away the valiant creature, and popped it in her mouth. Immediately, she was taken aback by the deliciousness of what, she was eating, as well as the warm relief coursing through her body as this one tiny berry almost completely cured her hunger, but it did little to help her exhaustion or aching body, and so she merely reached out her hand to the creature as a thank you, and after a moment of hesitation, it nestled into her palm.

Against the warm, fuzzy feeling of squirrel fur in her hand, Zasha drifted back into unconsciousness. 

The next time she awoke, she was warm and dry. The wind was howling through the trees, but she could not feel it on her skin. Instead, all she felt was softness and warmth, light against her eyelids, which were still shut tight against the dawning fear of death. 

But then came the gentle hands, the soft voice telling her, she would be alright. That she was safe. And her eyes remained shut, but this time out of fear the voice would disappear, if she were to open them. 

The hands washed the delirium off her forehead, as the voice babbled softly like a quiet brook, clearly not expecting anyone to be able to hear or understand them, but still somehow believing a calming presence might help their patient. They fed her more berries and stayed with her until she drifted off to sleep once again.

Eventually, during her lucid moments, Zasha gathered the courage to open her eyes and present herself to her nurse. She was rewarded by the sight of a tall, slender frame lounging on a chair nearby with pale, porcelain skin and white hair spilling out of their braid and into their face, obscuring one of their eyes. They were wearing clothes of wools and leathers and furs and clearly absorbed by a book, that lay open upon their folded legs. From their neck dangled a wooden acorn, beautifully and delicately carved from a single piece of wood.

Further investigation, through the medium of conversation, strained at first by sickness and confusion, revealed that this vision was called Hasterien, and that they weren’t just Zasha’s gracious bed nurse, but also her savour, who had come to her in the form of a squirrel and brought her to the druid camp.

During her next few days of continued bedrest, Zasha met few other druids, and of those she did see, most were elves like Hasterien, although she did catch glimpses of some humans and a single hin. Hasterien, however, seemed to have taken responsibility for Zasha’s recovery and provided food, warm teas and company every day.

As Zasha got better, Hasterien started telling her about the druids, their gods, their magic and their connection to the forest and nature around them. This quickly let to Hasterien teaching her their craft and practices, and as months past and Zasha fully recovered, no one seemed to find any reason to ask her to leave, so, having already grown very close to Hasterien, she stayed. 

Eventually she earned herself a place amongst the druids, and she was officially initiated into their circle. 

Hasterien proved to be a formidable and powerful druid, and so they agreed to continue to teach Zasha everything they knew. Spending a vast majority of their time together, praying, crafting or even hunting, they grew quite familiar with each other, and eventually and inevitably they fell in love.

Zasha told Hasterien everything about her past, and they were the first person beside her mother to touch her face gently, and looking sternly in her eyes tell her that she did not deserve the treatment, she had known. That she was more than the product of an ancestral dalliance with the demonic. 

About a year into this endeavour, on one particularly beautiful summer day, where bugs were buzzing lazily about, and the scent of wildflowers saturated the air, Hasterien presented her with necklace. Much like their own, it featured a wooden figurine, combining the oak tree of the druid’s main god, Silvanus, with the crescent moon of the goddess Selûne, whom she had always been drawn to. The pendant was to serve as focus for her spells celebrating her uniqueness alongside her connection with nature.

But as is often perceived to be the case by people, who has experienced very little true happiness in their life, this bliss too was not meant to last.

…

During Zasha’s second year among the High Forest druids, a group of tiefling bandits found their way to the encampment. The druids not having much to offer in terms of riches, but being determined to protect their forest, the ensuing altercation quickly turned ugly. Bears, boars and wolves fighting off the bandits alongside vines and lightning storms. 

Eventually, they managed to defend their home, but not without suffering terrible losses, which left the remaining circle devastated. Worst of these losses were the death of the circle’s leader, the old archdruid, who had been a maternal presence within the circle for decades. 

The circle could find no consolation from their gods during these times, apart from the certainty that death and loss are part of that natural state of the world, they hold so dear. Religious faith, however, does little to quell human – or elven – emotions, and with grief often comes hatred and anger. The bandits who cost them so important lives being long gone, the druids lacked a vessel in which to place their sorrow and blame. And so, it fell on the only person with anything in common with the bandits. The only tiefling in their midst.

The days following the attack were a time of upheaval and disorder, and when a new archdruid was finally appointed, they had some difficult decisions to make, in order to bring back internal peace.

For Zasha, these days became all too reminiscent of what, she had already left behind in her previous home. For the first time since her arrival in the forest, people were whispering, pointing fingers and – without the protection of being essential – there were a few actual, physical altercations. 

The will of the community regarding Zasha was clear, and even though the new archdruid was announced to be Hasterien, their hands were tied by the people, they were suppose to lead. Though she got to keep her title as member of the High Forest circle, it was made abundantly clear that she could not stay there.

Zasha packed what little she had, and she had her bittersweet parting with Hasterien, leaving behind the remnants of the home, she had build there.

…

During her time in the High Forest, Zasha had forgotten about the world outside. How they looked at her. How they treated her. It only took two days for her to be reminded of this reality by the hackling and jeers from passing travellers.

She quickly got into the habit of putting up the hood of her heavy cloak when she walked along the trade roads or passed through towns and villages in order to hide her horns, hair and eyes, her tail already being nestled safely away under her skirt. This disguise never held up to scrutiny, but it did allow her a semblance of peace as she walked, as she no longer stood out at a passing glance. However, just to be safe, she stayed away from frequented roads to the best of her ability.

Years of belittlement, followed by years in nature had given her some practice in the art of blending in with your surroundings, so as not to draw unwanted attention, and in the coming ten-days these skills kept her safe, even if every stepped drained her confidence.

This was the state in which she entered Triboar, a town of commerce, that was more a temporary settlement for caravans of merchants than an actual town. Here the streets and markets were bustling with trade, as merchants from Silvermoon gathered the newest wares from Waterdeep before heading south. Human, dwarfs and hin filled the streets to such a degree, Zasha was repeatedly all but knocked over by someone passing by. Even though it was a town of largely dirt and canvas, all of the colours seemed somehow much more vibrant, than Zasha had ever seen before. The reds and blues of the Calimshite silks displayed in one merchant’s booth were deeper than the Sea of Swords. People came in hues of jet black and cobber brown, even the greyish skin and large frames of half-orcs towered over some of the booths, and a flash of red, which caught Zasha’s eyes in the crowd, turned out to be the skin of another tiefling, leisurely, but determinately making their way through town.

The sight of another tiefling shocked Zasha to such a degree, she had no choice but to look at the people around her. No one seemed at all impressed or appalled by the presence of the other tiefling, and for the first time since leaving her circle, she put down her hood, and made her way to the nearest tavern.

The Black Stallion was perhaps even busier than the streets outside. At every table, groups of different kind were pouring over maps and plans. Some were working the caravans, looking for the safest route to their next destination, but – as Zasha would soon learn – some were adventurers looking for their next job.

Not a single table was left empty, so, spurred on by the sight of the tiefling outside, Zasha found a table with an empty seat. At this table a sourly-looking dwarf in full armour was drinking from a tankard of beer, as a curious human seemed to be explaining something to a very eager gnome.

The human was ashy and dark around the eyes as though he was wearing makeup. His nails were painted black and at his shoulder, a raven with bright red eyes was staring straight at her. 

“Can I sit?” Having finally reached the table, and being stared down by the creepy bird, Zasha was losing her nerve.

The dwarf grunted his response and introduced himself as Torrukrim Stonebeard Grimkrumson of clan Ildfjeld, a paladin who had spent the past few years fighting in a war against an orcish warcheif called Obolt Manyarrows. 

The human turned out to be detailing the finer workings of the insurance business. Apparently, he was a member of the writers’ guild and used to work in insurance back in Amn. He eagerly, albeit a bit nervously, introduced himself as Arthimæus Balsamico Jr., son of the owner of a renowned insurance company.

The gnome offered by far the warmest greeting of the three. His name was Bingduda Bentir Kiro Leon Goldmaker, but insisted they all call him Bing. He was a bard looking for a grand adventure to write about.

That adventure just so happened to present itself that very second. As Zasha overheard a group of hin at the neighbouring table discussing the rumours of a demon cult in the near by woods.


End file.
